“Civic Federation raises controversial idea of taxing retirement benefits.” Isn’t it wonderful that the Civic Federation, a “think tank” funded by wealthy corporate types and made up of people you did not elect, goes through all of the trouble to present ideas to our elected representatives for ways to fund programs in our state?

Worse yet, the RRSTAR that we support with our subscriptions, believing that they will report information crucial to our best interest, is also in the pocket of these same wealthy individuals and corporations. I warned you about the “divide and conquer” plan the media pushed to pit the middle class people from private industry against the middle-class public workers in order to steal public pension money.

I predicted that the media would soon publish and back ideas, put forth by this unelected “think tank,” to take money from retired members of private pensions also.

Pit the people who are still working against the people who have retired. Notice that these “think tanks” never present ideas like getting rid of the corporate loopholes, raising the minimum wage or changing to a graduated tax as a possible answer. These large corporations are raking in record profits, and instead of using that money to provide jobs, they are buying back stock in their companies or buying competitors so that they can control the market prices of products.

I will make another prediction for those of you who are still working. You may again let yourself be fooled into thinking, if they just want to tax the retired people then I will go along with that because I won’t have to suffer. Your tax increase will be next because the only other alternative, when the pension tax doesn’t cure the deficit, would be to entertain the idea of raising the taxes of these people in power. They will use all of their power to ensure that never happens.

Let me explain how taxpayers subsidize corporate welfare. I looked into a program called SNAP that the state provides to poor families. You can look this up and fill out a sample scenario like I did. A large corporation whose name begins with the letter “W,” for instance, pays an employee $8 an hour. I entered the monthly amount that the employee would make working 40 hours a week, which doesn’t usually happen because the company may have to provide benefits.

The fictitious employee with a wife and two children can apply for assistance through SNAP. Keep in mind that I only looked into SNAP and not into heating assistance and other available programs. The employee could qualify for $515 a month in benefits paid for by you the taxpayer.

Page 2 of 2 - Instead of earning $8 an hour, the worker is earning the equivalent of $11.22 an hour. Why would the corporations agree that the minimum wage should be increased when the taxpayer money is there to make up the difference? This would only result in the decrease of their record profits.

They can spend much less money by donating to “think tanks,” media outlets and politicians to control what the people read and hear. The biggest lie is that we are told not to tax job producers even though they produce very few jobs. When it comes to the point that the money runs out and nobody can afford to buy the products that the corporations provide they will also join in on the suffering, but it will be too late to turn it around.

This is also written as a heads up to middle-class newspaper reporters. Find the guts to become truly investigative reporters like we used to have and stick your necks out for the good of your children and grandchildren. Readers, quit giving any credibility to propaganda put out by these “think tanks.” Politicians, make your grandchildren proud of you when they realize that you stuck your neck out so that they could have a better future.